The Term Is 'Partner', Not 'Sidekick'
by BloodyButterflies
Summary: Once the best of friends, now the bloodiest of enemies. Harleen Quinzel and Tess Grayson. Partners to the two most powerful men in Gotham city. On opposite sides of the fence, down two seperate walks of life. The Robin and The Harlequin.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

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_A child can escape the shadows. – _**Steve Largent.**

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It was one of those swirled vanilla twilights which are the chief staple of all cool summer nights; those evenings where the darkness wraps itself lovingly around the porch light and perforates the inky pockets of night with fireflies. Sorbet colored skies were folding gently over a lemon shard of sun which had yet to disappear beneath the horizon. Long shadows tangled together on the pavement, and the air was thick with blood-stirring rap coming from a radio down the street. The houses along this street were shabby and poor, but as well maintained as their owners could afford. Buckled porches had long weeds growing up to the banister railings, but there were window boxes and the walkway was always raked and kept clean. It was teetering on becoming part of the Narrows themselves, seeing as those treacherous streets were merely a block away, but there was a resilient hope in the young families who moved here which kept the spark of brightness alive.

On the roof of an apartment building sat a young girl, perhaps thirteen or fourteen. She dangled her bare, dirty feet into the space beneath her, taking long sips of root beer and scuffing at her tear-stained cheeks and watery blue eyes. Buttery blonde hair was mussed and sticking up in odd directions, but still in some semblance of order due to the two pigtails hanging down her back. Glasses which hung a little askew on the end of her nose had cheap plastic purple frames, and she pushed at them angrily. Her cutoff jeans had odd stains on them, from either melting popsicles or something more sinister, and her raspberry red tank top had seen far better days. Still, there was a cocky jut to her chin as she looked blearily out at the setting sun, and wiped her eyes one last time, annoyed with herself for being so upset.

Behind here, the door to the roof slammed and she flinched, nearly upsetting her root beer. Twisting her neck at an uncomfortable angle, she saw the short, slender form of another girl arriving on the rooftop. "Whatcha doin'?" The girl asked, coming over to sit next to her. The way she plopped down was so careless and innocent, and the blonde girl raised her eyebrows and snorted.

"Nothing," The blonde girl answered with a sigh, taking another sip of her root beer. The younger girl fidgeted, twisting badly painted nails and biting her lower lip. Evidently, she had been expecting a better answer than that, but the blonde didn't particularly care. She didn't particularly care about anything right now.

"My name's Tess," The girl piped up, and the blonde turned to look at her. Tess had a short, shaggy and unruly mop of red hair which hung into her curious green eyes, and her face was unspeakably filthy in that charming way all young children have. Beneath the dirt and ice cream stains, Tess had an enormous amount of vivid freckles and a short, snubbed profile with an eager smile on her lips. "What's yours? And can I have a sip of your root beer?"

Wordlessly, she passed the bottle to Tess, and the young redhead guzzled down at least half the contents in one long gulp. When she was done, she smacked her lips and giggled childishly. Tess cocked her head to one side, still waiting for an answer. "Harley," The blonde said finally, her voice very still and strangely hoarse. "Harley Quinzel."

"Cool," Tess said. "My mom and dad just moved here from Metro City, 'cos Dad's working for the newspaper and Mom wants to get back into nursing. I'm in fifth grade, so that means I can stay home by myself while Mom and Dad go to work. What grade are you in, Harley?"

Harley wished for her root beer. She flicked a glance at it, suppressing the desire to snatch it from Tess's hands and fling the empty bottle over the roof edge. It would shatter into a thousand glittering pieces, each one catching the final twinkling rays of the setting sun, and maybe that evening it would catch the moonlight, too. Harley popped her knuckles idly. "Ninth," She responded dryly. "Which means I get to stay at home all night without my parents." She didn't mention that she was glad her parents were gone most of the time. It was infinitely harder just to be in the same room as them when they were home. When there were things shattering, blows raining down and angry screams penetrating the walls. Even when her parents were gone and the house was completely still, she imagined she could still see the fights imbedded in the walls, wriggling under the dirty wallpaper.

"All _night_?" Tess echoed, clearly very impressed. "Cool! Maybe we could have a sleepover some time!" She hesitated, waiting for Harley to voice her enthusiasm as well. When the blonde was unresponsive, Tess pressed on. "I have all sorts of games," She continued. "Battleship and jump rope and lots and lots of Barbies. You wanna come over to my house and play?"

"No, thanks," Harley responded tonelessly. Tess tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear.

"Well, what _do_ you wanna do?" She chirruped.

"Sit here and think," Harley bit back icily. "Sorry if that's boring to you."

"No, that's okay!" Tess said brightly, taking Harley by surprise. "We can think together! I like thinking. My old teacher, Mr. Jackson, used to say that thinking is his favorite pastime. I wonder who my new teacher will be? I'm going to Gotham Elementary, but I used to go to Metro City Elementary. Are the schools really different? I hope not, because I'm not real good at remembering stuff, like classrooms and hallways. One time I got lost in school, and I was wandering around the whole school for like an hour!" She finished with the flair of a person who had told this story many times.

Harley was torn between severe annoyance and mild amusement. The kid _would not shut up_, and it was almost funny. She looked so ridiculously _innocent_, with her scabby knees and dirty face and glitter polish on her nails. Still, listening to the kid talk was better than listening to her parents' voices in her head, screaming at each other and at her, over and over again. She pulled the elastics from her pigtails and shook her blonde hair around her shoulders, fluffing it up with her nails and trying to rub her eyes without Tess noticing. There were some crusted tears around the corners of her eyes, and it itched. Tess paused, and Harley realized dimly that Tess had asked her a question. "Come again?" Harley asked.

"I said, can I braid your hair? It's really pretty. I got some cool hair stuff for my birthday, do you wanna come see? I can make you look really pretty! I have nail polish, and a cool hairbrush, and all sorts of stuff. C'mon, my mom showed me a really cool thing to do to your hair to make it all wavy." Tess said brightly. Harley slipped the elastics onto her wrist and got up, rubbing the backs of her thighs where the granite pebbles on the rooftop had indented into her flesh.

Maybe it was that damned cheeky smile, or maybe it was a longing to get away from her parents, but Harley shrugged and accepted the invitation. As she was practically dragged downstairs by the rambunctious child, Harley chuckled a one-note, rueful laugh to herself, more of an expelling of breath than anything. It would be nice, she decided, to get out of the house and away from her parents.

Even if she had to put up with this overtly sticky, redheaded child.

* * *

"Harleen Quinzel, where are you?" Shrieked a shrewish voice from beneath them. "Harleen, if you're on that rooftop again, I swear to God I'll beat the everlivin' daylights outta you!"

Harley ignored her mother with practiced ease, choosing instead to adjust herself more comfortably on the sun-bathed roof where the two girls had set up their unofficial clubhouse. In the five years they had known each other, they spent more time on the roof than in either of their homes. Five years had changed the two girls quite a bit – Harley was taller, more angular, with blonde hair hanging almost constantly in twin tails down her back, settling just after her shoulders. Tess had grown perhaps three inches, and had a sweet, wholesome curve to her rounded face and her green eyes were very large. A sleek pixie cut had replaced the gawky shag of her childhood haircut, and Tess brushed it out of her eyes as she sat up to squint at her friend. "I don't know how you can just ignore them like that," Tess muttered under her breath. Harley dragged her forearm across her eyes and left it there, too lazy to roll over and face her friend.

"You've met my parents," Harley mumbled, drowsy from the warmth of the sun, "They'll shout for ten minutes then give up and go watch television. They'll be too drunk later to remember why they wanted me."

"Your dad is creepy," Tess said, turning over on her stomach. "There's something about his eyes ... it's weird."

Harley ignored this and changed the subject. "True or false: Every person on the world has a purpose."

"Come on, Harley, not another psycho-analyzing question," Tess groaned. "You picked my brain apart last week for your paper, remember?"

Harley grinned. "And I got an A on that paper, thanks to your idealism. All of my professors have such a _misguided_ view of the human mind."

"There's nothing wrong with idealism," Tess pouted. "And it's not _idealism_, per se, just a different world view. I don't think that everything's this big, dark, scary place full of spiders and creepy crawlies. There are some really good aspects to it, and I hope that this city realizes them before it's too late. I mean, look at the Wayne murders –"

"Tess Grayson, I am more fed up with your theories on the Wayne murders than you are with my psychology tests," Harley laughed. "Seriously, you're _obsessed. _It happened like what, fifteen years ago? They died, the city mourned, big whoop."

"They galvanized the city," Tess persisted. "I think Gotham is starting to realize that there's still good people here – good people with plans for the city. One day, when I graduate from the University, I'm going to build a monument to all of the people who have been murdered in this city. It'll be big marble clock, I think. Glowing white, all crisp and snowy, with a great big gong. And when it strikes the hour, it'll be heard all over Gotham." She finished with a happy sigh.

"I thought you wanted to be a gymnast," Harley reminded her. Tess flushed.

"You can have dual majors, you know," Tess pointed out. "I still like gymnastics, but I love architecture too. Plus, Gotham needs hope more than it needs another starving athlete."

Harley's grin had a shade of bitterness to it, an edge of ruefulness in her words. "Tess, how is building a giant clock going to give people hope? If you want to give people hope, burn this city to the ground and start over." She shrugged and flipped over on her side to face her friend.

"I don't know," Tess sighed. "I just wish I could do something, something to remind Gotham that there's still hope here. You can _feel_ it. Can't you, Harley?"

"You're an incurable optimist," Harley smiled.

"And you're a horrible pessimist," Tess grouched, turning over on her back. "Seriously, you need to look on the bright side sometimes. Get your nose out of those textbooks and look _around_ you, at Gotham. Stop sniffing around people's heads and start trying to do something. You're older than me, you can do more! _We_ can do more! What if we –"

"Tess, Tess, Tess," Harley sighed. "Enough. You are a patriot for Gotham, I get it. Why don't you just _leave_ Gotham, get your education, and come back? That's what I'm going to do. I don't know why you're so stuck on Gotham, the place is sick. It's riddled with disease, Tess – look, you can't set foot out the door without mace and a nightstick to beat off the muggers and rapists. The politicians all promise to help, promise to clean up the city, and nothing happens. It's past saving, Tess, just give up."

"It's not past saving," Tess insisted. "I can _taste_ the hope." There was a desperate, wild desire in her green eyes.

"Yeah, well, I want to taste a raspberry popsicle," Harley said, and poked Tess in the side. "Go get me one."

"Fine, fine," Tess laughed, and slammed the door behind her. Harley looked at the sun glaring down at them and rolled her eyes. Tess was such an idealist. She had never lost that adorable innocent quality that she had as a child. It was really irksome, occasionally, but most of the time Harley was more amused than anything. Tess posed no help to Gotham. No danger, either. No, Harley was getting out of here as fast as possible, and she was taking Tess with her. They would shake the dust of this scummy town off their feet and never come back. It would take a while to convince her, though; Tess had several friends here and she was very close with her parents, who were two very lovely people by Harley's standards. Tess's parents were both sweet, caring people with simple, straightforward jobs and neither of them beat their daughter. Neither of them hurled their daughter across a room, or broke a bottle across her back and gave her stitches. No, Tess had a lovely family.

But she could convince her to leave, Harley was certain of it. It would take effort, and time, but Harley would get the two of them out of the poisonous city and head someplace wholesome. Tess was too innocent to get suckered into this pit of deception and evil. Harley knew she could save Tess.

Irony is a cruel, heartless mistress.

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**A/N: **I watched both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight in the same day, and my first irk was 'Wait! Where's Robin and Harley Quinn?' I kicked this idea around for a while, and decided to write a story about a Nolanized version of the two of them. I sense sort of an aversion to Robin, especially in Nolanverse, but I'm hoping to give her a few quirks to make her more adaptable to Nolan's world. By the way, she is going to be actually _useful_, not just Batman's little sidekick. She's going to be going off on her own, etc. I hope to emphasize both Harley's relationship with the Joker equally with Tess's relationship with Bruce Wayne/Batman.

Um, yeah, anyway. Can you please review and tell me what you think? :3 ^^


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One: Logical Reasoning **

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_A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it._ -Rabindranath Tagore

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Nostalgia was a funny thing – all throughout college at Metroville University, she had always thought fondly about her little rundown neighborhood. And now as she drives through the black streets, getting rerouted through residential areas due to construction and being flipped off by enraged drivers, she had never missed her old home as badly as she did had certainly changed – there was a rougher, harsher quality to everything – but fragile, flickering hope was buried deep under a layer of grit and sour memories. She tucked a stray lock of **x** red hair behind her ear and maneuvered down the cramped, crooked little street that had been home to many of her fond childhood memories.

The neighborhood was a land lost in time, like a dusty snow globe tucked away on a shelf. The barrels were still spilling trash onto the sidewalks, the gnarled old trees pushing up the sidewalk paving stones, the hedges wild and untamed. However, she heard the happy screams of children and saw two blond girls jumping through a jittery sprinkler, and she smiled, flipping her sun visor down. She slowed to a stop by the curb, shutting off her clunky engine. When she stepped out, the late afternoon sun hit her hard in the eyes and she squinted, tilting her face away from the glare.

And then she saw those ice blue eyes looking at her with wide, blank shock written all over them.

"_Tess_?" A familiar voice cried.

"Oh, my God, Harley!" Tess shouted, and the two women hugged fiercely but awkwardly, a low hedge between them. Tess pulled back, her freckled face grinning widely, bright eyes a little teary. "You look _fantastic_!"

Which wasn't precisely a lie – Harley certainly didn't look bad, what with a long and lean form which most women would die for. Not to mention her thick bone-straight blonde hair was twisted into a sleek, professional knot at the base of her neck, showing off the neat curve of her jawline. But up close, there were dark circles beneath her eyes and a dark, shifting strangeness which Tess couldn't quite identify. It made her normally bright, clear blue eyes slightly glassy and dull. Harley still smiled at her friend, though, and shook her head slightly at the compliment. "Shut up," She laughed. "You're the one who looks good," She said with a small nod of the head before flippantly changing her tone, " So what's up, what brings you back to town?"

Tess shrugged and adjusted the strap of her clunky tote bag. "Well, I graduated from Metro U, and I'm coming back here to look for an apartment." She beamed at Harley. "I didn't tell you in my last email because I wanted it to be a surprise."

Harley's face was inscrutable, and that strange difference in her eyes seemed to grow more noticeable. "You're ... coming back to Gotham?" She said, with a nervous little laugh, as if expecting a punchline.

"Yeah! I got my degree in financial management. I applied for a couple of jobs on the political boards around here. I thought maybe I could be one of those Legally Blonde kind of girls, y'know, serve the coffee and tell all the dirty old men to change or die." That puppy innocence graced her face brilliantly, accentuated by the impossibly dull rays of sunlight cast down upon her, which were turning her auburn hair into a halo of supernatural glory. "But enough about me, what about you? You said you'd quit your job, where are you working now?"

Something came over Harley's face – a light blush, a little skip in her breath, her eyes dropping. "Working over at Arkham now," She said, and that flush grew deeper when she met Tess's gaze. "The people there are _wonderful_."

Tess arched an eyebrow. "Psychopaths, rapists and murders are wonderful?" She said, but her smile had a hint of sarcasm behind it.

"No, their minds," Harley responded, a little breathlessly. "There's this one patient in particular – he's a _genius_. Jack. Their minds are just so different, Tess. They live in a world so different from our own, but so alike – a Wonderland, if you will. They're not responsible for their actions. They're so ... _free_. They don't have to worry about social standards, or acceptance, or reputation. They just do things."

"Sounds like you're having fun, then," Tess said, but she sounded a little confused. "Anyway, I'm going to go in an surprise my parents, and then maybe we can all meet up for dinner, all right?"

"Oh - I can't," Harley said, and her brow furrowed slightly. "I'm meeting someone for dinner." The flush grew.

"Oh, ho _ho_!" Tess said, her confusion evaporating. "You got yourself a _boy friend_," She sang.

"No! Shut up, Tess, it's nothing like that," Harley blushed. "Just someone from work."

"Well?" Tess squeaked, pinching Harley's shoulder. "What's his name? What does he look like? What does he do? Is he cute? Does he have a friend?"

"_Tess_," Harley said, and fixed her with a disparaging look, which was somewhat tempered by her scarlet cheeks. "He's not handsome, exactly," Harley faltered. "But he's so ... _unique_. So liberated. And I don't think you'd like his friends."

"I'd say try me, but I'm happy with the guy I've got," Tess said. "Speaking of which, Eric's coming up to Gotham to meet my parents tomorrow," She said brightly. "He really wants to meet them." She leaned forward conspiratorially, a delighted gleam in her eyes, grinning slightly too wide. "I think he's going to propose. He says he's especially interested in meeting my father. That's got to meet something, right?"

"Probably," Harley answered, and then checked her watch. "Look, I've got to get dressed or I'm going to be late," She said, and then forced a smile which revealed too many teeth and too little heart. "It's great to see you again, Tess. We've got to meet for lunch sometime."

"Yeah, I should probably get in and surprise my folks," Tess said. "Tomorrow, maybe?"

Harley was far away in her mind, and she checked her watch again. "Look, I've really gotta go," She said, and then offered a quick smile over her shoulder. "Gonna be late."

"_Harley's_ got a _boyfriend_," Tess sang as she sauntered away. "Harley and her boyfriend, sittin' in a tree..."

Harley didn't even hear Tess's fond teasing – the door slammed shut behind her. She was lost in a world of her own. There were things to do. She hadn't given up on Tess, not yet – but it had been such a shock to hear that Tess was coming back to this corrupted, filthy city. This city of plague and disease. This city which needed to be taught a lesson, which needed to be burned to the ground. She should have left, run far away from this place. But instead she had opted for a fairly local college, gotten a practical degree and then _came__ back._ She came back to _save_ this horrible city, this master-less beast.

She stormed upstairs into her bedroom, kicking the door shut behind her. The place was dirty – clothes were strewn everywhere, the bed sheets tangled in a sweaty knot on the floor. The mirror was horribly dusty, and the wallpaper was the same mangy stripes of yellow she had when she was a child. By some bizarre twist of irony, she still stayed in the same house her parents had lived in, the same place her parents had died in. A murder-suicide. Or so it appeared to the Gotham police. Harley yanked the pen out of her hair and pulled it roughly into two tight ponytails, flipping them over her shoulders. Hands snatched at her makeup which were lying strewn all over her bed, and she gathered the items roughly in her grasp, dumping them by her mirror.

Her strokes were rushed, hurried, and clumsy – it didn't matter, really, he wouldn't mind. He liked it when her makeup was messy. As she drew the diamond shaped patches around her eyes, her thoughts turned back to Tess – they had grown apart, true, but they still kept in touch. Harley had witnessed Tess's innocence growing over the years – she grew up coddled, protected and loved. Harley knew how the world really was. No, Tess needed to be woken up. Maybe then she would see how bad the world was, and leave. She had tried to protect her over the years – tried to tell her how the world was so she could _defend_ herself before she got hurt. But Tess had spurned her advances – she changed her major halfway through college, opting instead for Financial Advising and Managing instead of Architecture with a minor in gymnastics.

Harley looked at herself in the mirror and smiled, cocking her head to one side while she idly twirled a ponytail around her finger. He told her that she was beautiful. She was beautiful _only_ when she was properly dressed, though, and she hurried over to her closet. He knew exactly how she felt – he had helped her open her eyes, taught her how to see the world how it really was. And he was so passionate. She was the only one who truly understood him. At times, she realized she was the only one who loved him. She had learned to look past the scars, see him for the wild, passionate man he was. Oh, how beautiful his world was.

And choosing her Joker, her Clown Prince, over Tess wouldn't be hard. Tess made her decision.

Tess was there to help Gotham, to try and rebuild it from the ashes.

And Harley was there to destroy it, and laugh while it burned.

* * *

It had taken forever to find the 'right' Chinese takeout place, Tess thought as she rolled her eyes and sighed, pulling into a narrow space right outside her house. The paper bags crinkled, and the rumbling in her stomach was her automatic response to the absolutely delicious smells of home fried rice, egg rolls, and teriyaki chicken. She sighed, bumping her car door shut with her hip. Harley had been acting so strange earlier. Arkham was no place for a pretty woman like Harley, Tess knew – she had been in that place once before on a journalism trip. It had been horrible, a silent tomb of a place where people quietly died inside their own minds. She didn't know how Harley could stand a place like that – but Harley had always been queerly interested in the insane. She had always been slightly off balance, and Tess had once looked up on the internet for the symptoms of schizophrenia. Harley had a mild case, Tess concluded – but it was more likely just too large of an imagination. Still, their friendship had been strong through time; granted, Harley had been pushy to the point of being domineering about Tess leaving Gotham for good.

All thoughts of Harley left her mind when she saw the screen door hanging eerily off its hinges.

"Mom?" Tess called, her steps quickening. "Dad?" She took the porch steps in a bound.

The paper bags dropped to the floor with a dull crackle when she took in the sight before her.

The horrible part was that the furniture seemed to be vastly undisturbed. The only thing out of place was the smashed screen door. But lying before her, the blood still seeping across the floors, were her parents.

Both dead.

Both of them face down on the floor, gunshot wounds in the back of their heads.

The scream which ripped from her small body seemed vaguely distant, as if she wasn't quite sure who was making all the noise. Everything was numb, the edges of her vision warped and stretched, as if the whole thing were a nightmare. Her heart stopped for a brief moment, her breath coming in high, tight, wheezing gasps, and she dropped to her knees. The crimson blood soaked into the fabric of her white Capri pants. Their bodies were not yet cold, but their eyes were glassy and there was absolutely no movement. She screamed again, and this time the sobs came – huge, whooping, choking sobs which hurt and sent blindingly hot tears pouring down her face. The sobbing turned into screaming – long, continuous screams which were only halted by her breath running out.

She grasped at her mother's blouse, hugged her father's chest, wailing, covering with her parent's blood. Her heart broke over and over again with every agonizing beat of her heart, and she scrabbled desperately at her mother and father's lifeless bodies.

_wakeupwakeupohgodwakeup_

Harley's makeup was running, but she tried to hide her tears. It was for the best, she told herself. Tess needed to wake up. She needed to get out of here. Harley looked over at the driver of the van, saw the strong, bold frame of her lover, her partner – the Joker. Jack. Clown Prince of Gotham. She smiled through her tears.

She wasn't going to have Tess around in Gotham when the Joker and his Harlequin were going to blow it sky high.

* * *

**A/N: Whoo, dark much? Like I said, I'm Nolanizing both Harley and Tess. Sorry for the long delay! I had some insane stuff happening this week – there are now five out-of-work actors living under one roof. This is CRAZY. Good thing I'm related to one of them, otherwise I'd be somewhere on the ceiling. **

**As always, a shout out to my awesome, marvelous beta, _xTune_, who not only gave me some wonderful concrit, she's helping my writing skills improve every day. Cookies and bagels to you, my friend!**


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